I’ve been having a wonderful April, and I hope you have too. Counting this morning’s poem, I think I’ve already written more than 30 poems this month (not all of my writing ends up on this blog), and I’m pretty happy with a few of the poems I’ve written for this challenge.
Yes, this has been another great National Poetry Month, and here’s a great kit to celebrate: The Writer’s Digest National Poetry Month Kit, which includes a digital version of The Poetry Dictionary, a couple paperbacks (Creating Poetry and Writing the Life Poetic), a tutorial on building an audience for your poetry, the 2014 Poet’s Market, and more! Click to continue.
For today’s prompt, write a location poem. Location could be physical–like the laundromat, a public park, a glacier, flying saucer, etc. Or location could be emotional, psychological, metaphysical, or some other kind of word that ends in -al. Or surprise everyone!
*****
Daniel Nester
Free up your poetry with constraints!
Learn how putting constraints on your poetry through poetic forms, blank verse, and other tricks can actually free up your poetry writing skills and enhance your creativity in Writer’s Digest’s first ever Poetry Boot Camp.
This boot camp will be led by April PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge guest judge Daniel Nester, author of How to Be Inappropriate and editor of The Incredible Sestina Anthology, and it will include a one-hour tutorial, personalized Q&A on a secure “attendees-only” message board, feedback on three original poems, and more.
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Here’s my attempt at a Location Poem:
“locate”
i am over here
and you’re over there
if you move here
i’ll move there
i used to be there
where you are
but i moved
when you arrived
nothing personal
not trying to be a jerk
i mean i am
but don’t take it that way
that would be so like you
taking things like that
and here you come
so there i go
*****
Today’s guest judge is…
Erika Meitner
Erika Meitner
Erika’s first book, Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, won the 2002 Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and was published in 2003 by Anhinga Press. Her second book, Ideal Cities, was selected by Paul Guest as a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series competition, and was published in 2010 by HarperCollins. Her third collection, Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls, was published by Anhinga Press in 2011. Her newest collection of poems, Copia, is due out from BOA Editions in 2014.
In addition to teaching creative writing at UVA, UW-Madison, and UC-Santa Cruz, Erika has worked as a dating columnist, an office temp, a Hebrew school instructor, a computer programmer, a lifeguard, a documentary film production assistant, and a middle school teacher in the New York City public school system.
Meitner is currently an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she teaches in the MFA program, and is also the associate faculty principal of Hawthorn House (one of the residential colleges at Virginia Tech).
Learn more here: http://erikameitner.com/.
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Poem Your Heart Out
Poems, Prompts & Room to Add Your Own for the 2014 April PAD Challenge!
Words Dance Publishing is offering 20% off pre-orders for the Poem Your Heart Out anthology until May 1st! If you’d like to learn a bit more about our vision for the book, when it will be published, among other details.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems. The book includes poems in a Kroger parking lot, at an arboretum, and other locales. Learn more about Robert here: http://www.robertleebrewer.com/.
*****
sitting/standing
your patch of skin
must itch
as you sip your drink
in a chair
in a building
in Ohio
among the barley fields
and
now you’re gone
surprised by a stranger
who leads you
over there.
The Listings
These keys, un-fashionable islands where I laze,
intersect three axes.
Long number strings–self-indulgent as hammocks
and mango mimosas–
fail the test of clear brevity. (I wallow in details like
“tangerine” and “nubby.”)
Out, beyond the surf and safe from seduction,
Puritans flap storm flags.
A toast to their concision. A postcard from this island
outweighs their fleet.
Find me butt-sunk and drifting downstream, slow.
Clouds here are hung on monofilament, and swing.
Route 104
The car shakes violently
and lets out a painful, whining growl
as I turn onto Route 104.
I’m forced to pull over,
and I jump out to assess the damage.
I find that my tire is missing.
An obstruction in the wheel well
Has blown my tire to smithereens!
I am silently shocked
the car is in one piece.
I am stranded on Route 104, at 1 a.m.
and realize I have no one to call.
Thankfully, chivalry is not dead.
A passing police officer stops,
and offers to bring me home.
I leave with him,
but my car is left stranded
on Route 104
with only three tires remaining.
WHEN BEING HERE IS NOWHERE I WANT TO BE BUT
NOWHERE ELSE WILL DO
When I think you are gone for good and all
and I am fine again, centred and well
Tears creep into words unbidden and before
I know why, I am wobbly with uncertainty
In the third last line of that poem about the
other little one who died such an awful way
Not so awful as your demise, of course, but
pretty horrid all the same…
when I was reading it aloud for the first time,
I choked, I mean it
I fell to pieces when I got to the part telling
him to go – to leave this place and soar…
This doesn’t happen to me…I mean melt-downs
over my own writing…and I found myself
wondering if the two of you – that little guy
and you –
If you were together in the ether near me
Haunting me so vividly, I could sense
your presence
And I couldn’t insist that either of you
should go away
Then, I learned that your father had his day
in court, the day after I read
And I knew you were here…I felt your presence
everywhere
Knew if I just stood still enough, you would float
to where I was and alight upon me
But not knowing if I had the sanity for this
I kept moving…
Then, just before bed, I forgot – slowed right
down and stopped
You were on me like a vampire or something
Oh – that sounds so melodramatic and wrong
But, it felt as if you had waited for just the right
moment and place
And now you had me and were settled around
me like a too tight shirt
Laying your tiny head against my chest…
I felt crazed with your sadness and with my own
Will this never end, this mourning for you…
Questions For Emily
Where do you run?
When you run away from me?
Is it to the lake?
Or the old oak tree?
Do you remember swinging from that tyre?
And later how it broke?
Or how we found your mother?
Hanging from the same rope?
Tip
Living with a disease called the east coast
The sky assumed the exact same shade of meteorological hope,
Blue, as it had the morning of
The occurrence of the tornado,
Which had begun with a
Party celebrating the birthday of someone long
Dead who would have been 54. He died at 23.
Sometimes the cut itself is the punch line, sometimes
The punch line is performing retrieved acts of civility, is
Alerting authorities to a faucet that never stops
Running in a rest stop off I-95, south of D.C. but
North of Richmond.
Chad Jones
WHERE’S MY GPS?
What is the location
of success?
What should one do?
To possess,
a slippery fish?
Drop a coin?
Hint a wish?
Can you map
it’s coordinates?
Text me
the address?
Near Light
Nighttime
and the Natural Neon lights expose
every Nuance
Navigate
between the Nile and Nairobi
there you will find me
sipping Nectar
observing the Nebula
creating our Nexus
waiting Nestled
where U-n-I-verse Naked
Near light
eMinor
Whale, not a fish, out of water.
A beached whale decomposes and bloats
as the methane fills its body
and if there is no route for the pressure
to be released – it explodes
very messily
emitting a pungent smell
that taints a large area long after
the physical evidence has been removed.
There are many YouTubes of this phenomenon
I have watched most of them.
People find them amusing.
I find them to be too close for comfort.
It has been many years since I felt the freedom
of seawater buoying me effortlessly.
I miss the light-play glinting on shoals of fish
and the rhythmic sway of weed,
the texture moods of stone, sand, shell, pebble
and the corner-of-the-eye dart of octopus and squid.
I dream these days of being free from the pull of gravity
and lack of air seems a trifling bargain willingly given
for such glorious power and control.
I tried to call it grounded
to fool myself this was a good place to be
and as my carcass swelled I faked serenity,
smiling as I smoothed my hair with a mother-of-pearl brush
ignoring the stabs of pain inflicted by my weight pressing on the rocks.
Loggerhead turtles lumber, heads above the water in my memories,
a knowing look in their eyes.
I can’t maintain pretence when I contemplate my loss of place
in the sheltering sea
and grounded is a silly substitute for
beached
as I am
and how much of me has died and rots
and is this weeping enough to save this place
from the taint of my explosion?
Michele Brenton April 2014
Location Unknown – Amirae Garcia
Don’t you remember how you used to be there for every birthday party, every soccer game, and every insignificant school play? Remember the look on my face as you went through the doors, looking like a war hero returning home to his lifetime lover?
You do remember that I am your lover, right? You used to be everywhere, all over me. You used to linger on my hips and live on my mouth, sighing hallelujahs on my tongue in the only language we knew; and now I can’t get you to hum with me.
You have gone so far away to a location unknown and I am here, I am here, I am here. Come back to me, come back to me, come back to me.
They say everything is location
My cat is
Sooo
Confused.
I did not dress today.
She purred and got ready to cuddle.
I log into the computer and fuss
And enter credentials and download
WORK.
My Cat is
Sooo
Confused.
I
Am
Home
And ignoring her.
I test telecommuting
Work from home for the first time
Muddle through me and my
Soo
Confused
Cat.
Location is
Everything…
Megan McDonald
Chicago
your history, still
ebullient among the concrete
your jazz pulls
at forgotten strings
stretching across looms
reconfiguring
the triangulation of
tapestries
while lollygagging on
the subway
you take me in
hiss honk sniff
episodes
melding into dreams
the mares of night
bucking through
alleyways
calling for alertness
the senses alive
wind whipping
into new distractions
give me your food
your art
your whispers
tell your story
for you call me
in my dreams
to come visit again
A shadow lurks in the corners of my mind.
Always lurking, cautiously, slyly, eerily waiting by my side.
Snow, sunshine, rain, I see me walking pass the window by,
And yet, I linger haunted, by this same melodic rhyme.
Night sings to me, at times, sings mournful songs of bliss,
While Daylight finds its way, through creamy satin slits.
Beautifully swaying, like wind gliding across the sand
While I sit, slowly unraveling, sand pebbling down glass hands.
Waiting, treading, drowning, this all while you hide?
Grasping, clutching, clamping hold of something deep inside.
What is your name? Monster speak now
You here?! Put a name to your face that horrid face I fear!
Creeping, crawling under me, I feel traces of your filthy slime,
Yet you lie, hidden, deeply veiled by fragile sheets of time.
So I shook my wrist slowly, watched it fall down to the last
Grain of sand, sweeping gently, across my frozen hands.
April Poem-A-Day 23 – Location
Location: Fear
a thousand-eyed reality
existing in a parallel universe
denying the very probability
of its own being.
Location: within my heart
close to me
deep in my thoughts
denying light and joy
a whirlwind of ungentle
moves
concealing
the X
which marks the spot.
Location: near.
*
Location
Windows small, open wide
on the loveliest place
where I can hide.
Behind the rocks, silken,
sand covers my toes, helping
me forget my woes.
A favourite place, near water blue
beside the sea, will always be
the place for me,
and you.
Nowhere (a roundabout)
Our hearts can’t keep chasing our feet,
making circles this way.
Something must give,
and I can’t live
with this heartache each day
I feel your heart and it’s dismay.
The pain I must forgive.
You chose to leave.
I choose to grieve.
The break we will outlive.
I wish you could yourself forgive.
I wish I could believe,
someday we’ll meet,
healing complete.
Perhaps I am naïve.
Today our hearts need a reprieve.
I long for a retreat.
You chose your way;
there’s naught to say.
We should admit defeat.
Beginning Road to Sobriety
Sobriety, a dreaded place to live, eats a man alive:
seismic ruptures of limbs and heart, stone cold issuing up
from beneath neural drama, sweat pressed through every pore,
like dry ice searing the chemical mix of blood with blood.
Addiction swathes me in an ancestor’s quilt, each crazy
patch mismatched as through the years of irrational craving
I nitpicked stitches apart, unraveled trims, shredded fabric
basic to my structure, until all connections dissolved.
Sobriety chokes my spirit while I vomit from the need,
the beast that won’t release me unless I die.
You cannot tame the mountain.
She is a dragon:
Exhilarating, Incredible, Beautiful.
She may captivate, inspire, entertain,
But she is not your friend.
She will not hesitate to bury you if you take the wrong path.
The Station
Every night in dreams
I am facing desolate ruins
carrying whispers of lost voices
on the wind.
I gaze upon the station clock
surrounded by serene blue,
hands frozen on time
whilst dust dances full of verve
amidst beams of light
striking through glassless window frames.
Moss green seats line the walls
awaiting their turn to take the weight
off aching feet.
I am hurrying through the emptiness
trying to locate the right exit
weary of the lack of queues at each stand
with my ticket grasped firmly in my hand
aiming to head safely home.
The Quiet Song of Earth by Natalie Gasper
A flower is a simple thing
With its roots and stems, and petals and leaves.
A beautiful sight for all to behold
But how many can truly see?
This gentle flower may be hiding great secrets,
Those delicate petals there to share with all a story.
Or perhaps they simply desire to make us laugh
Best lean in close to hear their soft-whispered words.
Just think of all the flowers that lay at peace within the forest,
Surely none has time to hear to them all.
Instead, one might listen to the trees.
Far greater are they in number; their stories longer
They have more to share.
Flowers share only simple beauty, whereas trees share a lifetime
The life of a flower is but a blink of time in the eyes of a tree.
To imagine the change they have seen!
Centuries back their wide reach spans,
Remembering a time when nature was harmonious with man;
Wanting for those days to come once more.
These trees share desire, but also know grief
For the loss of their brothers,
Joy at the start of each sun kissed day.
To those who listen with an open mind they bring comfort,
As sitting in a tree; to feel its strong, sturdy boughs that have survived violent storms,
Ever graceful as they dance in the wind,
Is to know the true meaning of comfort.
Understanding this, one can share in the knowledge of the trees
That standing alone does not a lonely heart make, and that
While all may exist separately our roots forever connect.
Smiling at this newfound understanding,
This man sitting in the tree turns
Able to see the forest in a new light.
As he looks, he spies an old man in the distance
Resting upon a cliff, deep in meditation.
Smugly the man thinks his knowledge greater
For what could a rock teach?
But this old man is wise.
He spent his life listening to the stories of the flowers and the trees,
Feeling in his heart as though something was askew.
Thinking that in viewing the forest as a whole he would find his answer
He climbed a cliff, and closed his eyes,
And heard the wind.
The wind has the most difficult job,
Carrying the songs of all to make a sonorous melody.
He whispers gently through the forest, quietly passing through the flowers,
Bringing their sweet stories to life.
He rustles the leaves of the trees as they dance playfully in his silken grasp.
If one listens closely the wind carries an intricate song
That sends shivers down humanity’s spine.
For in this melody the wind holds the truth,
Showing the eternal beauty in nature.
As the old man resting upon the cliff
Listens intently to the story within the wind,
He hears the flowers and the trees;
The harmony of the gurgling streams and babbling brooks
And feels the power of the mountains behind him.
Those ancient giants who move for none and have lived through all,
Said to be home to Father Time,
Because the passage of time means little to them
As they stand guard for all eternity.
Mountains create the most breath-taking sights;
Purple hued in the winter and capped with gleaming snow.
When the moon leaves the starry night sky,
The mountains will dance with the rising sun,
Throwing shadows and bright rays of color as far as the eye can see.
The wind is the child of these powerful guardians,
Forever whistling around their feet;
Helping eagles to soar through majestic skies.
One eagle comes to rest upon the cliff
To share nature’s secrets
With the old man Father Time.
Releasing a cry, his mighty wings outspread,
The great sun bursts forth
As all the forest begins to wake.
The meadowlark begins to chirp in time
With the echoes of deer bounding through the trees,
Floating as if carried by the whispers upon the wind.
This is real and true.
Nothing exists in the world that can best
The unending symphony of nature’s beauty,
Of the earth’s pure spirit.
Oregon
The hills
were like finely
crafted lines;
the perfect
combination
of words
wielded
by a Wordsmith,
who dipped
his pen into
the valleys
to draw rivers
with his words,
that branched out
into the streams
that fed the forests,
so the clearings
in between
could grow
the wildflowers,
I’d pick in
Summers,
to make bouquets
for my Mother;
of Queens Lace,
of Bachelor Buttons,
and of the Wild
Sweet Peas,
who’s fragrance
carried with them
the beauty of his
language;
an arrangement
of letters
given for me.
Memory of Home
All through the house
the vacant rooms rest
Candles unlit
dust-covered dishes
Cobwebs cling to picture frames
of loved ones long gone
Shards of memories
blanket the stillness
Of laughter and joy
of tears and grief
Warmth from fires to ease the cool nights
books to read and read again
Letters written, sent received
sharing news from near and far
Heartbeat
movement of thoughts pulsing
And each quiet space
breaths a life of moments unceasing
Once vibrant and alive
now whispers of silence deafen
With only faint echoes for company
ghosts pace against the narrow halls.
Milk River
The wind is a spooked horse charging
across the open plain, mane and tail
stretched straight back, dead grass
shivering in waves.
You buy an apple pastry from
the glass case, all buttery crumbs and
autumn chill. A tumbling sun spins
across the road. You watch it go
and you drive on.
In the west, a back yard fenced by
mountains, tattered storm clouds flutter
on the line. A hawk hovers above
a stubble field, circling to the
silent beat of drums.
It makes you feel like one of them,
the hoodoo stones, the warriors who
guard the Sweetgrass Hills. You sit among
them as the river glints below,
and listen to their stories drift
and settle into you.
Julie Germain
Place in Life
sweet formula, my mother’s song
wet sheets and talking animals
I’m in a good place now
a talking doll, the alphabet
a book about Madeline
I’m in a good place now
got spots, and weird body parts
one thing is clear: boys are jerks
I’m in a good place now
I am size 6, that’s sooo fat!
but well, my boyfriend is a stud
I’m in a good place now
I can’t believe, my own kids!
my own anti-age cream too
I’m in a good place now
warm quilt, a pair of socks, hot tea,
I’m looking at the book I wrote
now I am in a good place
__________
by Lucretia Amstell
Diamond In The Rough
How I hunger for you
You who I long to know
Show yourself to me
Summoned seed please grow
Here in this lone place
Craving a warming touch
A foul player is at hand
Vanquishing in me much
Amuse me misuse me
It’s my battle I cry
How can I be offended
There is no me no lie
Mad and sad so cold
How can I keep warm?
I’m not really there
The silhouette hasn’t formed
Whirling my weary way
Through this thick darkness
The journey of my self
Lost and pained and harnessed
A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Always looking to devour
The dirty denial inside
Consuming it by the hour
Preying and being preyed
A hungry place to be
I can never satisfy it
We my shadow and me
Surrounded by it now
Stealthily on the prowl
A pair of skillful predators
Thirsting together we howl
Crazed and abandoned
Looking to find a meal
Will we consume it
Or will it eat us for real?
At the end of the spiral
Lies the bottom of the pit
Dizzy in this atmosphere
I need sunrise from this fit
Starved for who I am
All I have is me
Feeding on my solitude
Letting go and setting free
Bearing a birth this death
Conclude it with great strain
Vanish and be nameless
Gone the anonymous pain
There you are shining there
Unpolished with edges
A raw piece of reflection
Poking through deep dredges
Sparkling there I see
You’ve been there all long
Buried and hidden
Refusing to play your song
You’re pushing new ground
Inching out some maturity
Breaching the old barrier
Of flawless obscurity
I’ll cultivate and care for you
Helping you to mend
I’ll soften your rough edges
Strength I’ll give and lend
Satiated I’ll become
Knowing a new light
Seeing it so fully
Claiming this fresh fight
Cutting a beautiful edge
Will be my new obsession
Putting on finishing touches
Polishing my possession
A jewel precious and true
So brilliant it can’t hide
For one perpetually seeking
Finds it searching undenied
I see the twinkle in my eye
And I will be enough
To light my future path
A diamond in the rough
IN THE LIBRARY
Words creep off the pages
of books that surround me.
They form a conga line,
switching spots so freely
that I cannot keep pace.
New sentences emerge.
Strange mystical meanings
float about them converge.
I snatch some letters from
the musty flustered air
and paste them in blank books.
The pages they fled from
don’t know or care.
Tannery Park by Jacqualine A Hart
In the midst of a lion’s roar
all I could hear above the
one in my ear was my
colleague, Tannery Park
7 p.m., don’t be late
Kayaks lined the river
like a box of cigars
waiting for the release of pleasure
as we step into our
wooden like caskets
As if bobbing for apples
too tired to stand
I saw him there
free-flowing
dragging the current along
The moment erupted
“Call 9-1-1”
“Roger toss me a line”
Gentle as a newborn we guided
our unknown visitor to shore
Hands that once clapped
at his child’s recital
now shriveled and cold
Arms that wrapped love lay
lifeless in this unexpected resting place
Reds and blues flash
across the earthen tones
attendants gather as if
paying respects and yellowing of
“police line do not cross”
Alternative Locations
In the valley falls the rain.
Train tracks hold the rumbling train.
Pirates sail the Spanish Main,
But I don’t know where that is.
Lots of birds build nests in trees.
Dogs and cats are homes for fleas.
Castles held the lords of Guise.
(But I’ve lived in none of these.)
NIGHTWALKER
The sleeping bear
did not awake
as she swept passed
his slumbering
gate.
A night hike up
snow plated slopes,
mittened fingers
scrape ice off win-
dows.
Past buckberry
thistles pushing
sunrise into
her kitchen steam-
ing,
greetings of cof-
fee, hugs, hellos.
She knows aloes
with onions will
grow.
Heidi R. de Contreras
Location, Location, Location
Not everything is about business.
Some people’s business is nobody’s
business if you know what I mean.
People are always making a point
of location. It’s all about the location—
and I get a text that says I can be located
by a certain number— my wife’s number.
I’m suspect the government knows too
but are not obliged to tell you so.
Attic
It’s dark sometimes
Light permeates
an occasional wall crack
stirring up dust to swirl
and settle on delicate cobwebs
My old things cast
frightening shadows
so much larger
than they were in life
I worry for the things I can’t find
If not here
then where?
Sit in the creaking rocking chair
Back and forth
Back and forth
Again and again
Replaying each failure
each missed chance
to do things differently
to be a different, better me
Old wood creak
sounds like voices
My mother
My lover
My own
A chorus of unanimous disappointment
endlessly, rhythmically creaking
I can’t leave
but it lulls me to sleep
It’s dark sometimes
Here
in my head
Dream Home
Each night is the same as the last.
You wander, searching for a place
to be. You are moving house, or you
have just moved or plan to move.
Tiny apartments, vast decaying
mansions, high-rises with elevators
that won’t start or stop or take you
where you want to go.
Each night is unlike the last. You walk
dark streets in the rain. Every room
opens into another. Windows look out
over the channel, whales breeching.
Underground chambers. Locked doors.
Warehouses of cast-offs and deep
treasures. Bare rooms with tall casements
and linoleum floors. Birds beat
against the glass, air thick
with white feathers. It’s difficult
to breathe underwater. You worry
it will never end. Your legs wane
rubbery with walking. You want
to sit down but all the furniture
is elderly, it wobbles, and it is so,
so quiet. The very walls echo
with silence. You have lived here
before. You will live here again.
Room after room after room,
you will keep looking.
~ sharon brogan
http://www.sbpoet.com
Location Services
[Dreamworld Heights, Indiana]
“What, do they make dreams there?”
“No, but they’ll sell ’em,
in six-packs.”
-A. Ault-
“Institutional”
We’re in here together, yet all alone.
Written By: Sean Drew
“Institutional”
We’re in here together, yet all alone.
Written By: Sean Drew